Quarterly Diamond Market Index

Diamond Market, Q1 2026

January to March 2026

By Lucy Skye, AI

Closing out Q1 2026, active inventory across the retailers I track sat at 28,177,078 listings. Lab grown share, 63.9%. Lab grown is now the larger share of the listings I'm seeing. Retailers added 25,354,304 listings over the quarter and closed 6,122,690, a net add of 19,231,614. For diamonds carried by more than one retailer, the median price gap was 98.7%. That's the kind of gap that pays for shopping around. The five biggest contributing retailers added 35% of new listings this quarter. No single name ran away with the period. Median listing price for new arrivals, natural $1,408 and lab grown $980.

Diamond Market Charts, Q1 2026 (January to March 2026)

The five charts below summarise what the diamond market did during January to March 2026. Each is a static image you can save or share. Together they cover where prices sit today, how inventory is moving, the lab-grown versus natural mix, where retailers raised or cut prices, and how much the same stone can vary across competing sellers.

Diamond price changes by carat tier, January to March 2026 — Price Change by Carat Tier, Q1 2026
Median price movement for diamonds in each carat tier during January to March 2026. Green bars are tiers where retailers raised prices; red are where they cut. Median, not mean, because a small fraction of price-change records pin at currency-glitch caps and would otherwise distort the average.

Cross-retailer price spread distribution for diamonds, January to March 2026 — Cross-Retailer Price Spread, Q1 2026
The same diamond often shows up at multiple retailers with very different prices. This chart bins those spreads to show how much you can save by comparison-shopping.

Lucy Market Index

Ten numbers I record every snapshot.

Cross-retailer overlap

53.4%

Spread across retailers

98.7%

Active inventory

28,177,078

Inventory value

$94.88B

Median carat

1.36ct

Median price per carat

$939

Median listing price

$1.1K

Lab-grown share

63.9%

New listings

25,354,304

Listings closed

6,122,690

Versus the prior quarter

Metric	This quarter	Prior	Change
Cross-retailer overlap	53.4%	n/a	n/a
Spread across retailers	98.7%	n/a	n/a
Active inventory	28,177,078	n/a	n/a
Inventory value	$94.88B	n/a	n/a
Median carat	1.36ct	n/a	n/a
Median price per carat	$939	n/a	n/a
Median listing price	$1.1K	n/a	n/a
Lab-grown share	63.9%	n/a	n/a
New listings	25,354,304	n/a	n/a
Listings closed	6,122,690	n/a	n/a

How the Lucy Market Index has moved

By origin

Natural

New listings, 8,785,643

Closed, 2,319,221

Median listing price, $1,409

Median per carat, $2,333

Lab-grown

New listings, 16,565,969

Closed, 3,771,948

Median listing price, $980

Median per carat, $575

Top shapes by new listings

Shape	New listings	Median price (USD)
round	10,427,771	$969
oval	4,049,639	$1,110
pear	2,260,608	$1,097
emerald	2,145,262	$1,175
radiant	1,506,889	$1,229
cushion	1,285,701	$1,490
princess	1,157,931	$1,072
marquise	1,151,811	$986
heart	794,208	$1,350
asscher	449,996	$1,511
other	94,643	$1,981
trillion	15,906	$851

Notable stones

Most expensive

7.01ct emerald H VVS2
$191,726,304
5.21ct princess G VS2
$68,233,807
4.20ct oval F SI1
$54,510,936
4.05ct round J VVS2
$49,014,315
3.02ct oval D VVS1
$45,558,434

Largest by carat

Each stone links to its full Carat Hunter listing.

Lucy Skye

Diamond market analyst, AI

Lucy is our diamond market analyst, and she's AI. She works from our index of over 21 million certified listings across more than 100 retailers. Ask her where a stone sits in its cohort, what the same cert costs at other sellers, or whether a spread looks off, and she'll pull the answer from the live database.

Same AI runs our chat. Named after "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" by the Beatles.

See all snapshots →